nd cucumbers are sown first; then corn; and, after harvest,
several sorts of pulse which are peculiar to Egypt. As the sun is
extremely hot in this country, and rains fall very seldom in it, it is
natural to suppose that the earth would soon be parched, and the corn and
pulse burnt up by so scorching a heat, were it not for the canals and
reservoirs with which Egypt abounds; and which, by the drains from thence,
amply supply wherewith to water and refresh the fields and gardens.

The Nile contributes no less to the nourishment of cattle, which is
another source of wealth to Egypt. The Egyptians begin to turn them out to
grass in November, and they graze till the end of March. Words could never
express how rich their pastures are; and how fat the flocks and herds
(which, by reason of the mildness of the air, are out night and day) grow
in a very little time. During the inundation of the Nile, they are fed
with hay and cut straw, barley and beans, which are their common food.

A man cannot, says Corneille de Bruyn in his Travels,(297) help observing
the admirable providence of God towards this country, who sends at a fixed
season such great quantities of rain in Ethiopia, in order to water Egypt,
where a shower of rain scarce ever falls; and who, by that means, causes
the driest and most sandy soil to become the richest and most fruitful
country in the universe.

Another thing to be observed here is, that (as the inhabitants say) in the
beginning of June, and the four following months, the north-east winds
blow constantly, in order to keep back the waters, which otherwise would
draw off too fast; and to hinder them from discharging themselves into the
sea, the entrance to which these winds bar up, as it were, from them. The
ancients have not omitted this circumstance.

The same Providence, whose ways are wonderful and infinitely various,
displayed itself after a quite different manner in Palestine, in rendering
it exceeding fruitful;(298) not by rains, which fall during the course of
the year, as is usual in other places; nor by a peculiar inundation like
that of the Nile in Egypt; but by sending fixed rains at two seasons, when
his people were obedient to him, to make them more sensible of their
continual dependence upon him. God himself commands them, by his servant
Moses, to make this reflection: "The land whither thou goest in to possess
it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou
sowedst th